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Peterloo & Prestwich

Yeomanry at Peterloo (2018)

The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, on Monday 16 August 1819. It is estimated that eighteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. Figures vary as many did not come forward with their injuries due to fear of reprisal by their employer.

After the victory at Waterloo the country expected a new period of prosperity. However unemployed veterans, the Corn laws keeping the cost of bread artificially high, a drop in wages and a failure of the harvest in 1816 after a volcanic eruption in Dutch East India (now Indonesia) lead to widespread discontent. The town of Manchester with a population of about 100,000 had not a single MP representing them in parliament, where as Old Sarum, a hill in Wiltshire had 2 MPs, the masses of the working class had no vote and no voice, but wanted to be heard.

During the preceding weeks, news of riots had spread about the land, and Bury prepared itself for trouble, swearing in 300 special constables. The workers also prepared. Practice drills took place to show how they could be orderly and not a threat to the locals as they marched. The Magistrates took this as the training of an army, and a sign of violent intent.

The public meeting that later became known as the Peterloo Massacre, had originally been planned for Monday the 9th August, but for legal reasons it was delayed. The advert for the meeting had stated the intention to elect an MP to represent Manchester, and that couldn't be done without the permission of the King. Monday was chosen as it was common for workers to take it as a "Saint Day" or day off work, and thus reduce the chance of employers discouraging their workforce from attending.

The march of the workers from Bury and the surrounding towns resulted in a procession of people heading through Prestwich along Bury Old Road, the only road from Prestwich into Manchester at that time. The men wearing grey felt hats with brims lined with green and the women with a green ribbon tied round their mob-caps, set off and picked up more workers along the way at Whitefield. Not everyone was in support of the march though, the landlord of the Bull's head in Whitefield rolled out a barrel of ale for the marchers, while across the road at the Wheatsheaf, being supportive of the King and Church, put their shutters up.

On the way to Peterloo (2018)

A number of workers from Prestwich, from the Dye Works at Waterdale, Prestwich Clough & Myrtle Grove, the print works at London Vale (known as Cussons in more recent decades) and of course the home working spinners and weavers of Longfield and Simister, would have joined the procession.

A portion from Prestwich, from London Vale and Myrtle Grove may even have taken advantage of the fine dry weather that August and walked down from Kersal Moor, which was a well known meeting place for crowds - in 1818 striking Colliers had gathered on the Moor to demand better pay for their dangerous work. They may have headed directly down what we call Bury New Road today, though it was just a sandy track in those days.

Johnson's Map of 1819 - from the Cliff at Higher Broughton

At Cheetham Hill the crowd was estimated at 3,000 with women and children, walking 5 a breast down Cheetham Hill Road into Manchester.

None of those that died following those tragic events in Manchester are recorded as coming from Prestwich. The nearest fatality was 17 year old William Bradshaw who came from Lily Hill, Whitefield. His parents had been married in St Mary's Prestwich 1816. He was said to be wounded with a musket, and also cut by sabre and trampled. He died in 1822, and is buried at New Jerusalem Church, Stand Lane, Radcliffe.

Another notable fatality from within what was then the Parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham was John Lees, a veteran of Waterloo, who worked as cotton spinner. He was officially listed as being ‘sabred’ to death, but witnesses say he was also beaten by soldiers with sticks, soldiers which he had served along side just 5 years earlier.

It is now thought that he died from blood poisoning, 3 weeks after the massacre and was the only victim to have an inquest, though it was curtailed by the authorities to stop a verdict of unlawful killing being returned. Shortly before his death he said to a friend that he had never been in such danger as at Peterloo: "At Waterloo there was man to man but there it was downright murder."

Charles Mill(s) from nearby Pilkington had also been trampled but survived, and Ruth Slater's "Bury Folk at Peterloo" lists ten more people from towns around Bury were trampled or wounded by sabre bayonet.

Using the power of the Internet, we find four more local people caught up in the events of that day.

Thomas Barlow, a weaver from Little Heaton was wounded by a sabre cut on the top of his head dealt to him by a Yeoman.

Francis Clegg who was described as a man of property from Prestwich, had been thrown down and trampled on, and seriously bruised by the pressure of the crowd. I suspect the extended Parish plays a part again, as he appears to be from Oldham.

Thomas Oldham (ahem), a weaver from Crow Alley near Unsworth (possibly Crow Alley in what we call Simister today), had his left ankle dislocated by being trampled on by the crowd.

Peterloo Map

On the other side of events we find that Mr W Marriott a Magistrate from Prestwich was present in Buxton's house that day. Buxton's house was number 6 on Mount Street in Manchester, which is now the staff entrance to the Midland Hotel. This house was used as an observation point and the base from where the Boroughreeves and Magistrates conducted their response to the gathering crowd. It was from this vantage point that 30 townsfolk, including Richard Owen and Mr. Phillips, signed an affidavit that they 'considered the town was endangered' thereby justifying the arrest of the speakers. A warrant was accordingly drawn up for the arrest of the 4 speakers.

A poster issued the following day, with Marriott's name listed

Another Prestwich resident also present at Peterloo does not appear on any casualty list, John Horsefield who was one of the Prestwich Naturalists. John Horsefield was a hand loom weaver who lived at Stone Pale, near Besses O'th'Barn. Although most textile manufacture was by then factory based, he preferred to keep his independence and learned plant classification and identification while working at the loom.

Hand loom weavers in Lancashire were noted for their commitment to self-education and self-improvement. They were drawn to botany, politics, poetry, entomology, science and mathematics and made real contributions in those fields. They were known as "scientists in humble life" and the botanists were later termed Artisan Naturalists. Their achievements were remarkable considering the circumstances of their lives.

John Horsefield was an onlooker at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and recorded that he had turned towards politics after the lack of an upturn in trade, which had been hoped for following the end of the War with France in 1815. The population had been calling for Parliamentary Reform, with meetings, petitions, strikes and marches planned through 1816 - 1818. William had attended meetings in Bury and Middleton, and in 1817 a crowd of 5,000 had gathered at St Peter's Fields in Manchester. On That day, they were dispersed, without injury, by the King's Dragoon Guards. However in 1819, a gathering of over 50,000 gathered at St Peter's Field, and was this time dispersed by the violence of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry, led by Hugh Hornby Birley, with 18 killed and over 400 injured.

You can read more about William's observations in this publication available from

Bury LHS

John Horsefield was one of the first founding members of the Prestwich Botanical Society in 1820 and in 1830 became its President.

Read a more in depth article about John Horsefield at Wikipedia

When we look to descendants of Peterloo we get (expectedly) mentions from those that tried to keep their "order" in place that day.

A smidge over the Salford border, at St Paul's on Kersal Moor we find the burial of Ethelstone Hart, 41 years the Rector of St Mar's Church in Cheetham Hill, and grandson of the man who read the Riot Act at Peterloo. Reverend Charles Wicksteed Ethelston of Cheetham Hill had been a magistrate, and also organised spies against the radical movement and claimed to have read the Riot Act at Peterloo. This claim was made sometime after 1819, but if they did it is not clear how anyone could have heard them from Buxton's House – and they certainly did not allow an hour for the crowd to disperse as the law ordained.

Rev. Charles Ethelston played a vital role in the repression by the authorities after Peterloo. At a September hearing of two men who were accused of military drilling on a moor in the north of Manchester the day before Peterloo, he told one of them, James Kaye, “I believe that you are a downright blackguard reformer. Some of you reformers ought to be hanged; and some of you are sure to be hanged—the rope is already round your necks; the law has been a great deal too lenient with you.”

Jumping back over the border into Prestwich we find the Birley sisters living on Hope Road in 1901. The house was called "Fernroyd", and the 3 sisters, Eleanor M., Alice G. and Florence H. Birley lived there. The first two ladies had been born in Prestwich between 1855-1857, and the third was born in Irlam o'th'heights, in 1861. They were all children of Thomas Hornby Birley and his wife Frances Sophia. Thomas was a cotton spinner (manufacturer) and came from a successful family from Blackburn. In 1854 the land for the British School on Rooden Lane in Prestwich (Heaton Park) was conveyed to Thomas Hornby Birley Esq., along with Robert & James Chadwick of High Bank.

Thomas's father was Hugh Hornby Birley, who had traded as Messrs Birley and Co. manufacturers of waterproof fabrics and India rubber articles at purpose built Mills powered by a steam engine manufactured by Sir William Fairbairn. He partnered with Charles Macintosh in 1824, and Macintosh bought the Mills (which had been started in 1814) in 1860 and became a household name that still lives on today. The Mills that HH Birley built were later sold to Dunlop, and still stand as apartments behind Oxford Rd Station in Manchester.

Yeomanry at Peterloo (2018)

Hugh himself lived at Broom House, Pendleton and had been Boroughreeve of Manchester (1814-15),a magistrate, deputy lieutenant of Lancashire and a commander of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. Hugh Birley was asked to take his cavalry to the hustings to allow the speakers to be arrested and removed, he led sixty Yeoman cavalrymen, made up of local business owners not really trained as a military unit, and allegedly drunk, towards the hustings and when surrounded by the crowd they drew sabres and started to inflict serious harm onto the crowd. Further charges by the 15th Hussars and the Cheshire Yeomanry then made things worse.

[in 1853 Richard Birley was living at Sedgley Hall, Prestwich this is possibly the nephew of Hugh by his brother Joseph, this brother had given evidence at the private court case brought against Hugh following Peterloo. Joseph was also father of Hugh Birley Conservative MP for Manchester from 1868 to 1883.]

8 Clarks Hill

Alice from Fernroyd, went on to live at 8 Clark's Hill in Prestwich. The property had originally been a converted farm house, and has since been demolished and replaced by a care home. Alice was valued contributor at St Mary's Church where she had been christened in 1857.

Clarks Hill is a pedestrian walkway in Prestwich, running between the Red Lion on Bury New Rd and Rectory Lane. It was partially widened for cars but was never completed.

Two of the Birley Sisters [NS1]

Upon his death in 1845, Hugh was placed in the Birley family vault, underneath present day St Peter's square in Manchester, and with the church having been demolished in 1907, his grand daughter Alice who died in 1910, lies in St Mary's Churchyard in Prestwich, beside her is another sister Cicely Frances Birley (died 1932) who was christened at St Mary's in 1853, she became a Deaconess in the Church of England.